by Susan Page @susanpage, USA TODAY

by Susan Page @susanpage, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is going on the road, including a stop Tuesday in Tennessee, to set the stage for the fiscal showdowns this fall that could risk shutting down the government.

The point, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says, is to push House Republicans to worry less about the possibility of a primary challenger in their district and more about broader national concerns. One big hurdle on issues from immigration to spending, she says, is the fear among Republican legislators that agreeing to a compromise in Washington could spark a conservative opponent back home.

"You hit the nail on the head right there," Jarrett said in an interview on Capital Download, USA TODAY's weekly video interview series. "The short-term political concerns often outweigh what's good for the country, but they were elected to represent the country as a whole as well, and sometimes we have to remind them of that. That's what the president is doing by traveling around the country and engaging people in this dialogue."

Obama spoke last week in Galesburg, Ill., and Warrensburg, Mo., before Tuesday's address in Chattanooga. More trips are set to follow in early August.

In them, the president is outlining spending "investments" in education and infrastructure he describes as critical, discussing what he sees as the dangers of growing income inequality in the United States, and warning against cliffhanger negotiations over raising the debt limit. Congress must pass some sort of spending bill to fund the federal government by Oct. 1, and the nation's debt is expected to hit its limit about a month later.

There's no easy agreement apparent on either. The White House and congressional Republicans differ over whether the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration should be extended into the next fiscal year. And while the White House insists Obama won't engage in negotiations over the debt limit, House Speaker John Boehner has said controls on spending have to be part of an agreement to raise it.

Jarrett was interviewed Monday in the historic chambers of the Secretary of War -- appropriately enough, given today's combative politics. The ornate suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the West Wing, features a portrait hanging over the fireplaces of the obscure James Porter, secretary of war for President John Tyler in 1843-44.

The recent White House trips reflect a lesson the Obama team learned from his first term, Jarrett says: Get out of Washington. "One of the key messages has been how important it is to do just what the president is doing now, and that is to go around the country, talk directly to the American people, make sure their views are heard here in Washington."

During the 2012 campaign, Obama regularly said his re-election might "break the fever" of political polarization that has gripped Washington.

"That was our hope," says Jarrett, one of his closest aides.

But it hasn't happened.

"It has not," she said. "We saw it right off the bat when, what, 90% of the American people were in favor of sensible gun legislation that would provide background checks....The fact that we weren't able to get that through was very troubling."

She says they haven't given up. A bipartisan immigration bill has passed the Senate, she notes. "We will be taking our counsel from the (congressional) leadership on what is the best way to get that done" in the House as well.

On the Affordable Care Act, the White House will try to persuade healthy, young adults who lack insurance to enroll in the exchanges that are scheduled to open Oct. 1. Their participation is seen as key. "We're going to try to make it as easy on it as possible," she says. "We want to make it fun to sign up.

"As I listen to the American people, they want that fever broken. They want Washington to work. The gridlock is extremely aggravating to them," she says. "So we're going to keep at it."